A black matter for the king

The 4000th combat death in Iraq is not necessarily more significant that the one that preceded it or the one that followed it. But today is the day that it is recognized, and parties on all sides have observed it.

More than 4000 of our brave men and women have died in combat in Iraq, and many more in non-combat incidents. Accidents, electrocutions, fraggings and suicides, all account for non-combat-related deaths. And many more soldiers are being sent home wounded, physically, mentally, often both at once, to seek treatment in a VA system that was already straining its limited resources before this war began.

Soon this will no longer be this Administration's problem. How will the next President deal with this situation?

Once again I am reminded of Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 4, Scene 1. This was the part covered on Star Trek: The Next Generation (in the episode "The Defector", one of my favorites), although they did a big jump cut from "'We died at such a place'" to Henry's response later on.

For those unfamiliar with this play, this is the scene where Henry V travels among his troops on the eve of the battle of Agincourt. He is in disguise, so nobody recognizes him - hey, you had to suspend disbelief a little even with Shakespeare. (Well, sometimes a lot.) Henry has come upon some soldiers and is testing their loyalty a bit by arguing back and forth about the king. In the end one of the soldiers challenges Henry to a duel after he - King Henry - has spoken against the king, and they agree to meet after the battle. Henry undoes Williams's argument with his next statement, which is after the part I have quoted, but you should keep in mind that Shakespeare was writing first and foremost for a royal audience, and would buff the royal ego any chance he got. Still, it is Williams's statement that sticks with you. With me, anyway.

KING HENRY V
I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here
alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's
minds: methinks I could not die any where so
contented as in the king's company; his cause being
just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS
That's more than we know.

BATES
Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know
enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if
his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes
the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
together at the latter day and cry all "We died at
such a place;" some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
well that die in a battle; for how can they
charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their
argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
will be a black matter for the king that led them to
it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of
subjection.

And now, the Vice President, summing up the Administration's position on public opposition to the war in Iraq.